There’s little in this form to make you think
or raise awareness of poetic art,
it’s but a game of passing interest
emerging from the head and not the heart,
a facile opportunity to doodle
in words that can prove tiresome once you start.

You choose six words at random when you start,
the simpler ones are best, no need to think
just blank your mind and tune it in to ‘doodle’.
No point in great conceits- there’s little art
in this for poets trying to reach the heart
with cultured words of lovelorn interest.

I thought at first my wife showed interest,
the sop was feigned and made my boastful start
a pointless exercise. With leaden heart
I took to drink- I could not write but think
that whiskey helps compose a merry art,
it warms the heart and clarifies the doodle!

So on the street I sang out ‘Yankee Doodle’.
A cop began to take an interest;
“Yeh buddy, tell the judge that this is art!”
I couldn’t stop where once I couldn’t start
to put six lines together- and to think
a couple of shots and man, did I have heart!

But try and tell a judge without a heart
that you’re a poet compelled to scrawl a doodle
from dawn to dusk, and try to make him think
that habeas corpus is of interest-
the legal means to set one free and start
to walk a sonnet line- a better art?

I’ve lost my wife, my job, oh this black art!
So bless me Father, hear me, hand on heart,
if I could start again I wouldn’t start.
He gave me six months hard with interest.
It’s forms like this can drive you cock-a-doodle
and now the damn thing’s over I can’t think.

What form of art ensures your heart will sink,
you doodle blithely when you start to drink
then lose all interest as you cannot think?